With These Words
by ValarieJosephine
Summary: All of the party had a past, and the same once rang true for the souls now trapped in Cie'th stones. This is a story about the failed l'cie, and the life they had before the fal'cie tore it away. ALL R/Rs WILL BE RETURNED UNTIL STORY ENDS!


**First, an A/N to apply to all later chapters: I own nothing in Final Fantasy XIII or any other Final Fantasies—though it is my personal goal to own a Chocobo one day in the future.**

**Second, an A/N solely for this chapter: The prologue focuses on the main party, and I plan to have an epilogue that does as well. Other than that, the bulk of this story will play more on the FFXIII universe than its characters, although I may mention them every once in a while, if you're nice to me :).  
>And as I mentioned in the summary, I will return all rr's on this story until it's over (that way I'm not still getting comments five years later saying 'this is great, please read my story'!). But please, **_**leave the comment you want in return**_**—if all you say is 'this is good', that may be all you get back. But if you put some thought into what you like/dislike, I'll do the same for you!**

**So without further delay, here it is: my very first fanfiction. Enjoy the ride!**

_L'Cie who fail their Foci become Cie'th, cursed to wander the wilds in a form of living death. Only after many years and much suffering do they extinguish the last of their strength and cease to roam. When this happens, the Cie'th's remains slowly fossilize, turning into what is known as a __**Cie'th Stone**__._

_However, this transformation does not mark an end to the Cie'th's regret and sorrow at having failed. Even after having turned to stone the Cie'th cry out, imploring other l'Cie to fulfill the Focus they could not._

It was finally here—the _true_ beginning of the end.

After endless days of slashing their way through countless enemies, grinding for innumerable Crystarium points, and gil farming on the backs of an infinite number of Chocobos, the team was off to face their final foe—Vercigetorix, the toughest out of all the battles they had yet encountered. The preparations were simple enough: Lightning would hunt their breakfast-to-be, Serah would cook it, Sazh would take Dajh down to get some water, Snow would buy the shrouds, and Hope would pack up what little personal belongings they had in the Base Camp. They knew it would be a long battle, so they said their final pep talks, hit the hay a little early, and planned to be up by dawn.

Yet plans—especially the most carefully laid out ones—have a funny little way of falling through…

"Uhh… Lightning?"

The deep, soothing voice that interrupted the sizzling of Gorgonopsid meat belonged to Snow. He stood behind Lightning, head sideways and a hand behind his neck. Lightning didn't even look up before asking, "Why are you still here?"

"What?" Snow asked, temporarily forgetting his charge. "Oh, yeah, shrouds—got it. But uh, first, there's… sort of a problem."

She closed her eyes tightly in frustration. The morning had already started off horribly; Serah insisted on helping Lightning fight for their meal, and to that end was sitting down with a wound from one of the beast's claws deeply embedded into her thigh. It was not the day for there to be 'sort of a problem', and far too early in the day for more problems to exist. She didn't ask—she merely waited for him to either tell her or fix it himself.

"I… uh. Hope won't wake up."

At that Lightning dropped her pocketknife, wiped the sweat from her eyes, and slowly rose to her feet. "Watch the food", she said, and swiftly marched towards his corner of the Base Camp. Snow attempted some protests, including his lack of culinary expertise, but eventually sighed when he realized she was in no mood to care.

Lightning towered over Hope's sleeping figure and used all of her military expertise to bark out the words, "get up". Hope's back rise and fell a few times from breathing, but he did not move from his spot.

Caring nothing for decency, she ripped the blanket off an almost-nude Hope and said, "It wasn't a request. Today is not the day to try my patience. _Get up_."

"I can't," moaned Hope weakly. "I'm sick."

This infuriated Lightning even more. It had been almost a year since Sazh first approached her in line for the Purge train, and not once had one party member dared to utter those words—until the very last day that it mattered. She said the only thought on her mind: "I don't care. Get up."

Hope responded by curling up into a fetal position and coughing weakly. It did nothing to stifle her anger, but the natural maternal instincts she felt towards him would not let her press harder. Instead, she grabbed the wristbands lying next to him and walked back to the fire.

As she approached Snow from behind, Dajh was running back to camp with a giggle, chasing Red (he named the Chocobo chick after Vanille's most noticeable trait) and dripping head to foot with water. She could see the dark circles under Sazh's eyes without a second glance, and he dropped the water near the entrance with a sigh. Lightning didn't wait until he had stood up all the way to walk past the fire, burnt Gorgonopsid meat and all, and hand Sazh the accessories. She cooly said, "you're playing Ravager today," and ignored his incoherent protests, grabbing her gunblade and walking towards Archylte Steppe with no explanation.

Sazh moaned in nervousness and frustration and looked at Snow, then back at the pan. "Hey! What'd you do to the breakfast!," Sazh exclaimed, clutching his complaining stomach. Snow merely hung his head and said "I'm going to get the shrouds", then sulked after Lightning to the nearest access point. Sazh, entirely oblivious and confused, watched him walk away for a moment before lying on his back and eating the meat, blackened as it was.

By the time Snow returned, Sazh was already asleep. Snow laid the shrouds by the water bottles and sat down next to Serah, massaging her wound and asking (every two minutes or so) if she needed more ice or a bandage change. Lightning came back half an hour later with another Gorgonopsid underneath one arm. She fixed breakfast quickly and dished out a small portion for everyone. As she handed Serah hers, she looked at her sternly and said, "Snow and Sazh and I will come back here when we're done. You stay here with Dajh. And if _that one_ comes around…" she flicked her head in the direction of Hope's motionless corpse, "smack him".

Serah's eyes burned just as hot as Lightning's did. "No. I'm not letting you and Snow leave without me." Sazh glanced up from his meal with a look of genuine hurt in his eyes, but no one noticed; the rest of the camp had their eyes fixed on the Farron sisters (save Dajh, who was still happily playing with Red). Their arguments always left the group in awe and indecision about which had the more vicious temper.

"What, and get eaten by an Amphisbaena the second you fall behind with that leg?" Serah stared intently at the grass, as if it could give her a good comeback.

"Serah." Snow's deep voice once again cut through the silence. "You know she's right, babe. I can't let you put yourself in danger."

"But isn't that exactly what all of you are doing? Putting yourselves in danger? Not caring who you might be leaving for the las—" her voice broke and she had to look down again.

Lightning turned away. She had a soldier's heart, and the military training had almost removed any emotion she may once have felt. But nothing in this world could get to her more than seeing her sister cry. Especially not when she knew it was her fault.

"Sazh, Snow, finish the rest on the go. We're already behind."

She stalled only for a moment to leave Hope his portion and found him shivering, his blanket still tossed onto the floor. A growl forming deep within her throat, she threw the blanket haphazardly on top of him and started towards Yaschas Massif, ignoring the men's tender exchanges with fiancée and son.

Hope listened to their retreating footsteps and cursed quietly under his breath. No one was supposed to stay at the camp, _especially_ not Serah. He needed time to think to himself, not time to worry over the well-being of an injured woman and small child.

Still, he couldn't stay in bed all day. It would take them around two hours to hike up to the Paddraean Archaeopolis, probably two more to fight the thing, and two more to hike back—if they didn't stop for food or rest along the way. He decided to count to 500 to make sure they were gone, then slowly sat up in bed and grabbed the breakfast from his side. The piece of meat didn't last long between Hope's teeth, and it wasn't until he'd swallowed the last bite that he felt it twirling in his stomach, mingling with last night's Orobon and a full serving of regret. He tried to wash it down with the few remaining drops of water from his flask, but that only made him realize how dry his mouth was from swallowing back guilty tears during Lightning's lecture.

Hope didn't need Lightning to tell him how worthless he was to pick today of all days for second thoughts. He had been screaming at himself all night for it. His mind wanted to get up, but his muscles just wouldn't budge. _It just isn't fair_, he thought to himself countless times. _Why do we get to live out our lives while they spend eternity suffering?_

He grabbed his clothes from the ground and slowly put them on so that his stomach wouldn't empty itself all over camp. Rubbing his eyes, he turned around to view the outside world—only to see a figure standing before him, cloaked in shadow and blocking out the sun.

He jumped up from his metal-pipe-seat and screeched, contents of his stomach doing cartwheels all the while. Serah kept her hands on her hips and raised one eyebrow. "You don't look very sick to me!"

Hope felt his cheeks getting hot as he wondered what she must think of him. _Is she going hurt me like Lightning said to? Did my voice sound really girly just then? Did… __**did she see me in my underwear just now?**_

Sensing his embarrassment, Serah forged a little half-smile and tilted her head. "Don't worry, I won't tell anyone. But as long as you're up, Red is napping and Dajh is getting restless. Come on!"

She grabbed his hand and half-dragged him out of his cubicle. He felt the blood rushing to his cheeks once more. But knowing that she wasn't angry helped settle his stomach a little, so he was happy to chase Dajh around with tag and hide-and-go-seek. In fact, he wanted to do it—he knew that the more he played with Dajh, the more time Serah would have off of her feet, and the better her wound would heal.

After about an hour, Dajh was ready to join Red's nap, Hope was sweating more than he had after the Adamantortoise battle, and Serah was laughing so hard it looked like she may just burst in half. Hope managed a half-smile in her direction before collapsing on the seat beside her. She waited until their bodies had rested a little to break the silence.

"You're really good with kids, you know."

Hope looked over long enough to see her smiling, then forced out a few loud chuckles and looked away. "It's not that hard—I'm still pretty much a kid myself."

"I know." The edges of Serah's lips fell just a little and she joined him in staring at the ground. "You don't have to act like a grown-up all the time. Sometimes… it's okay to run around, and play with your food, and… even to get scared."

"I—what? Oh, no, nonono, it wasn't that I was—I mean, I wasn't—I didn't lie because I was _scared_, I just—it was—"

"Hope." She put one hand on his knee and he tried to swallow so that his face wouldn't get hot again. "It's okay. I'm not going to tell anyone. You can be honest with me. I mean, I had six months of complete and total silence when I turned to crystal." She laughed a little. "I can keep quiet-especially when it's for a friend."

Her reassuring smile only made things worse as he tried to sort through which of his secrets she wanted to hear right now. He put his head in his hands.

"Well, you remember… with everything that happened—or, everything we told you happened, I guess—you remember that we all… I mean, Lightning and Snow and Sazh and I… we… turned into Cie'th for a few minutes?" Serah paused, then slowly nodded.

"It… was horrible. We had been protecting Vanille, and then... everything turned white, and… everything hurt. Especially… my heart." He looked the other way to avoid the judgment he imagined on her face. "The only thing that I could see in my mind was Ragnarok, and the only thing I heard was just… over and over again—'_You failed. You weren't good enough. You screwed up. You're worthl_-'"

Serah put her hand on his shoulder and he felt like he was going to be sick. Determined to stop himself from crying, he stood up and walked a few feet until he was standing in front of the Cie'th stone right outside camp. Serah took a few slow steps towards him to let him know she was still there—still eager to know what was bothering him.

Hope traced the outside of the stone with the tips of his fingers. "I fought so hard to convince them to go back and do the missions over again—to get five stars on all of them this time. I thought—I wanted it to buy me some time. I thought maybe if we did this thing _right_, really right… maybe they'd be set free."

Serah inhaled quickly, but tried to maintain her composure so that Hope could do the same. "You… wanted to help the Cie'th stones? Wanted to… free them?"

Hope put his hands in his pockets and stared at the ground. "I know it's stupid. I've told myself that hundreds of times. They've been Cie'th for… I don't know, maybe _thousands_ of years now and may not have a bit of human in them. But…", he looked back up at the stone, no longer trying to hide the tears flowing down his face, "we were all humans once. We all had a family, and friends, and we all came from somewhere. If you and me and the rest of us got to come back from being l'Cie… why can't they?"

Serah held herself in her own arms. "That's… that's really… it's _wonderful_ of you, Hope." He looked back at her, eyes glazed over and sparkling in the sun. "Really. No one else on this trip stopped to think about what they must be going through—the same things we _all_ went through as l'Cie, even for a much shorter time." She took her turn to look down at the ground. "But… well… have you thought about how you're going to do it?"

Hope shook his head. "I mean… of course I've thought about it but… you can't. They aren't human anymore. And it's not even that I want to bring them back to life or anything, I just…" he brushed the edge of the stone again, "I don't… want them to suffer."

Serah sighed and sat down on the nearest pipe-bench. "You don't have any ideas at all?"

Hope was silent for a minute and looked up at the sky, his mind now in a place where sadness and fear dissolve into a calm, dull ache. "No, I do, it's just…", he sighed again, "it's really dumb. You'd laugh at me for it."

Serah folded her hands in front of her and bowed her head as if she was praying. "With these words, I hereby vow that I will listen to whatever you have to say with serenity. I will not utter a word, nor snicker, no matter what you think." She looked up and met his gaze. "You deserve much better than that."

He didn't want to tell her—or anyone, for that matter. It was a stupid idea, and he knew it. He knew that even if she didn't show it, she would know right away how dumb it was. But something about the sincerity of her words got through to him—broke the barrier that he'd shown to everyone for so long. "I want to… write a book. About what they might have been like. To… preserve their memory." He looked back up at the clouds. "Even if they have to be trapped in these stones forever, I feel like… people could at least look at them, and see past what their focus was, or how many stars we conquered it with. I feel like they'd see… humans. What they used to be, rather than… what they turned into." He dropped his head to look back at Serah. "It's not much, but… I think it's the best freedom I could give them."

True to her oath, Serah did not speak. Her head moved up and down once in a somber acknowledgment, then she got up and walked towards the Archylte Steppe without a word.

Hope fell to his knees right where he was sitting and again buried his head in his hands. '_Stupid, stupid, stupid!' _The curses he screamed at himself in his head were too strong to be retold on paper. He knew he shouldn't have told her. She had probably walked away to go laugh at him away where he couldn't hear her.

The tears came back and burned against the back of his eyelids, but he let them come. In that moment with no one around, he would let himself hurt and cry and feel. Better to get it all out of the way now, because the second she came back, he swore he'd be stronger. He would shield himself from her and Lightning and Snow and Sazh and everyone and everything. Nothing good ever came from him expressing how he felt. He had learned to be stronger with a weapon—now it was time for him to be stronger with his heart.

Feeling sicker than ever and still exhausted from the day, Hope laid down on the pipe in front of his sleeping quarters, throwing a screw he'd found up in the air and catching it, mending the barrier on his heart while he did.

Not long after, he heard the familiar crashing sound in the middle of the camp, where two trophies now sat. He slowly walked over to see what they said: one was record of completion of all the Cie'th stone missions, the other a record of their five-star rating on those missions. It was over now—all the loose ends were tied up, and all the missions complete, yet the Cie'th stones still stood. Hope cursed himself for half-believing that they would disappear once the missions were done, and threw the trophies in the pile with the rest of them, all waiting to be sold. When he stood up, Serah was walking back to camp with her hands behind her back. It only stung for a moment before he pushed his emotions aside and laid back down on his pipe.

Serah kept walking until she was towering above him. "I brought you something to help you out." Hope continued to stare at the clouds, refusing to look at her, refusing to let his wall break again. Serah sighed quietly, then brought the object out from behind her. "It's… well… basically it's a deactivated access point. You can use it for all sorts of things now. Even… for writing a story."

Hope's heart stopped beating for a moment. He was still trying to keep up his wall—a wall still in the process of being built—but this new development was too much for him to handle. Serah kneeled to place the device next to him, and put her hand on his arm when she did. "I don't know if the Cie'th trapped in there have any sense of what's going on anymore. But… I think if they knew what you were trying to do for them… they would feel… peaceful. They'd rest a little easier, knowing someone was on their side. It's not a dumb idea at all, Hope—actually, it's really quite beautiful." She stood up and smiled at him, his eyes still facing forward. "And… well, I can't wait to read the first chapter!" With that, she left him alone to go tend to a just-waking Dajh so that they could wait for their families together.

Hope counted to 500 again to make sure she was gone, then slowly grabbed the device and rolled into his makeshift bed, turning away from her to hide his unrelenting tears. He touched it carefully, holding it in his hand as though it was the most precious gift he'd ever been given. And with a sudden burst of inspiration, he pulled up the virtual keyboard and typed out the very first page:

_With these words, I hereby vow  
>to set you free, though I know not how.<br>And by the time this work is done,  
>your regrets will be overcome.<br>Your lives are bound by sorrow and shame,  
>and my life bound to yours the same.<br>With these words, I here profess:  
>I will not die 'til you find rest.<em>

His fingers furiously typed away on the keys for the hour and a half it took before he heard Snow's booming voice in the distance. Not yet ready to announce his news to the world, he swiftly put away his word-machine and hid it under his blanket. He turned around to look at Serah, who was still playing with Dajh and Red. He watched them for a minute before she finally caught his gaze and smiled at him. He smiled back and mouthed 'thank you' from across the camp; she gave the same slow nod that she had before. And with that, the four of them turned to greet the oncoming party.

Snow was the first to arrive, running up to Serah and twirling her around in his arms. "We did it! We finally did it!" He laughed loudly as Lightning and Sazh jogged behind him, both grinning ear to ear.

Hope couldn't help but let himself break into a smile, too. '_Snow's right'_, he thought to himself. '_I finally did it. I finally found a way to set them free.'_

**Ending A/N: Whew, that was long… hopefully not too long? If it was let me know. This is my first fanfiction so I'm not sure if it's a good length or not. I can always adjust it for my loyal fans :)**

**Also, one major plothole in this that I am already aware of: this does take place after the story events, and since the party no longer consists of l'cie, there would be no one "playing ravager", because they can't do magic. I know, I know, I'm sorry. But I loaded my save file after I'd beat the game and still had magic, so I'm sticking with it! (Still had Vanille and Fang, too, but… whatever.)**

**Another potential for plotholes is… I haven't actually beat ALL the Cie'th stone missions myself yet. I know, I'm awful – but I only have three left! So theoretically, something more could happen when I do beat them all, which could leave this story null and void… but… I'm just gonna hope that's not the case :)**

**Thanks for reading, hope it was worth it!**


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